Signing off

Moses Lake Fire Chief Brett Bastian retires after 33 years

MOSES LAKE — A 33-year era ended as Moses Lake Fire Chief Brett Bastian retired Friday. His tenure as firefighter and then chief was celebrated at a small party at the Moses Lake Civic Center. “Chief’s first day of work was April 20, 1992,” said MLFD CARES Coordinator Heather Kok. “The population of Moses Lake at that time was about 12,000 people. Today we're at 25,000, roughly. The jurisdiction for the Moses Lake Fire Department was nine square miles. Today it is 23-ish square miles … They had 14 career firefighters, which is roughly the amount of firefighters that we have on an average day today. The number of apparatus that they had at the time was one engine, one wildland truck (and) a command vehicle that was shared ... Today we have five engines, two ladders, three wildland vehicles, two tenders and a handful of special technology vehicles. And a lot of that has been done in the last five years. So congratulations, Chief. That’s a huge win for our crew.”